00:00So the Clarence, tell me a little bit about, what's the menu all about, what's the kind of main focus of the menu?
00:08Well, so the main focus really is a relaxed atmosphere, something that you can go and eat in every night of the week, not a special occasion type place.
00:18Obviously we want people to come for special occasions also, but it's a more accessible type of menu for people to come and enjoy every day of the week.
00:26So, big emphasis on the grill side of things, the simplification of the main courses and all that.
00:32More of an accessible type of atmosphere is what we're trying to create.
00:37It's quite classic in terms of the selections, right?
00:39Yeah, very classical, so obviously prawn cocktails, soup, pudding, trifle, for example, just very classical food you'd probably have back in the day your mum would have cooked you.
00:49It's kind of what we're trying to bring, a homely feel to the food, you don't feel out of place coming two or three times a week.
00:56So that's kind of what we're trying to achieve really with the menu, is make it accessible and nostalgic almost for some people to come in.
01:05Because it's a neighbourhood spot and because you've got the bar, people will be coming in for drinks and stuff like that.
01:12Have you thought about that in terms of what people will be drinking as well as how that matches up with the food?
01:18It's not quite pairing, but how it matches up.
01:20Yeah, so not so much pairing, but definitely in terms of more emphasis on the beer side of things and wines by the glasses.
01:32So it does match up to the simplicity of the whole menu, but the food is quite simple like that.
01:40It's stripped away, there's no fuss, there's no microherbs on everything and all that sort of thing.
01:46It's very easy and accessible, which is probably the same on the drink side of things.
01:53It's something that you can have every day of the week, you don't need to, it's not a Saturday type menu.
01:58You come in, you want to get dressed up and get fancy.
02:00It's more of a, everyone wants to come every day.
02:04If you were going to choose your kind of chef's tea version of this in terms of what you would have for dinner yourselves,
02:10what are the dishes that most appeal to you?
02:13I'd come in for the grill, the grill always for me.
02:15Anything cooked over charcoal, cooked over fire, definitely going to be something that we particularly fancy.
02:20The sirloin is probably a big seller we've got.
02:24We get the dry ages around the corner.
02:26We get all the sirloins in, we dry age them ourselves for a few days and then we get them cooked over fire.
02:32You can't beat that, it's just a classic thing.
02:35You can get a couple of sides, fries, mash, whatever you fancy.
02:40But the steak for me, that's what I'd be going for, sirloin, 100%.
02:43It says for two, but I'm pretty sure I could polish it all for myself.
02:46You like a challenge, I like it.
02:49And then there's pub snacks as well, so the kitchen thinking about things that people might just want to have
02:55if they want to come in for a drink and pick away at something, right?
02:58Yeah, definitely.
02:59So this is probably one of the areas that was revamped the most when we changed to the Clarence.
03:06And an emphasis on the bar snacks, you can sit in here for a few drinks throughout the day,
03:10Saturday, Sunday, Friday, whenever you finish work, come and just sit and just continually have bar snacks all day.
03:16Not everyone, especially when they're drinking, not everyone wants a big heavy meal.
03:20You can maybe nibble at things throughout the day.
03:23We've got a scotch egg on there, which is great.
03:25A couple of bar snacks, like chips and Bernays and olives and stuff.
03:28People nibble at it, maybe they're going to come here earlier and then they're going to go for dinner somewhere else.
03:32It just keeps the trade coming through the bar, basically.
03:35Do you feel like Glasgow is an interesting place to work in hospitality if you want to build your career?
03:41Is it a good place to start out?
03:43Yeah, I think definitely now.
03:45When I first started out, probably 10, 12 years ago, there wasn't much on the scene in Glasgow.
03:51There was a couple of big restaurants, one down the road, there was the Blytheswood.
03:55But now, obviously, we've got Inner Loam and Kielbrook, there's a couple of Michelin stars there.
03:59There's loads of different rosette places that you can work in.
04:02So for a young chef to come through Glasgow, nowadays it's definitely a place to go.
04:06I think when I was back, when I first started, a lot of chefs were leaving Glasgow to either go to Ferlies up in Perth
04:14or going to London, quite a lot of chefs went to London or even further afield.
04:18But now there's a lot of chefs coming back.
04:20I know a lot of guys I've worked with down south who are Scottish who have moved back to Glasgow now.
04:25So it's definitely getting stronger and stronger, the food scene in Glasgow, every year.
04:29There's so much variation now.
04:32Go down Finiston, you can get almost any sort of cuisine anywhere you go.
04:37So it's definitely moving up and it's getting better, the scene in Glasgow, I would say.
04:43We just want to be there at the top, basically.
04:45There's lots of things that have contributed to that change over the last 10 years.
04:50Part of it's people going away elsewhere, coming back with new ideas.
04:53That's helped give a spark of creativity.
04:56But one of the essential building blocks is the fact that there's been a greater level of connection with the produce that surrounds us.
05:03You know, like the seafood and the meats that we can get and that we can make sing here.
05:09Is it a joy to work with that kind of side of things as a chef?
05:12When you get things through into the kitchen, you're like, yeah, I know how to make something really spectacular.
05:17Yeah, definitely. We've got the best produce in the world in Scotland.
05:20Maybe in Scotland and the north of England, we've got the best produce that you can get from farm to sea.
05:26So it makes your job easy.
05:29You get it and all you've got to do is cook it nicely, serve it with a sauce or a butter or something.
05:35And that's it. That's all you need to do. You've just got to let the produce sink.
05:39So it makes your job pretty easy as a chef.
05:44Even when I worked down south for a couple of years, we were getting produce from Scotland.
05:48All of our seafood basically was coming from the Atlantic in Scotland.
05:53It's just highly sought after throughout the whole world, basically.
05:57I think we export something like 90% of the fish we catch is exported throughout the world.
06:01So, you know, for us to have that on our doorstep is just tremendous, basically.
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